GAME THREAD: Navy Midshipmen at Georgetown Hoyas

Your Fighting Hoyas of Georgetown host the Navy Midshipmen at world famous McDonough Arena!

Game 2: Navy Midshipmen (2-1) at Georgetown Hoyas (1-0)

When: Tuesday, 6pm

Where: McDonough Arena

Series: Navy leads 37-19 dating back to the 1908-09 season.

Last meetings: 2006-07 (Home), Georgetown won 65-44; 2005-06 (Away), Georgetown won 72-49

TV: CBS Sports Network (Tom McCarthy and Chris Walker)

Radio: 106.7 THE FAN (Rich Chvotkin, 47th season)

Kente Korner: Bobby previews the game with Pete Medhurst, voice of Navy.

Other Coverage: Links

KenPom Ranking: Georgetown 89, Navy 198

KenPom Projection: Georgetown 76, Navy 65 (84 percent)

Line: Hoyas -10, o/u 141

Game Preview: For just the third time in the last 43 years, Georgetown and Navy will square off as the unfamiliar foes meet at McDonough on Wednesday evening. Although this meeting is likely the product of scheduling restraints caused by the pandemic, there’s a good case to be made why it should happen more often going forward. As seen above, the Hoyas are well underwater in this series that started over a century ago. In the interest of evening scores, a yearly matchup would make sense even if Navy hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1998. It’s local, it’s a likely win against a middle of the pack Patriot League team, and you know Navy will play hard until the final whistle. I’d suggest the Hoyas go to Annapolis once every three meetings as getting the program on base would be a good experience for everyone. I was at the game in 2005 and it was worthwhile for sure.

OK, so on to the present.

Coach Patrick Ewing was in good spirits for his pre game media availability on Tuesday morning ahead of the second game of the season. He first joked that grad transfer Chudier Bile’s injury information was a ‘state secret’ before pretending that he didn’t know what the Big East Honor Roll was all about. He may or may not have fooled me into starting to explain it before he admitted he was messing with me. In my defense, these types of jokes are harder to pick up over Zoom, right?

So we came to learn that Bile, who wasn’t in uniform against UMBC last week, had an ankle injury but Ewing expects him to be ready sooner than later. It sounds like that will be against Navy. As for the Honor Roll issue, Ewing is well aware of what it means and was very happy with Jahvon Blair’s output against UMBC. He also made it clear that he needs Jamorko Pickett to get to that level as well.

As for the other big name missing in the opener - four-star frosh Jamari Sibley - Ewing was highly complimentary but it doesn’t sound like he is as close as Bile to making his Georgetown debut.

Here’s Ewing on Sibley: “He’s going to have a great career here. He’s still just a freshman and he still has a lot to learn. He’s talented, he’s athletic, he can shoot the ball. He just has to continue to doing the things that he’s been doing the last week and he’ll have his opportunity. He’s going to have his opportunity when I feel that it’s time.”

Now more about the Mids. This will be their fourth game in the first seven days of the season. They picked up a nice win over George Washington to open things up and beat Mount St. Mary’s in their last outing. In between they were even with Maryland for the first 14 minutes before taking a 30-point loss to the Big Ten school. Hey, two out of three isn’t bad.

Cam Davis is the straw that stirs the drink for coach Ed DeChellis. Davis just went over 1,000 points for his career becoming the 25th Mid to do so in the process. Now in his third year as a starter, Davis has increased his scoring each season. His 26 points last time out were just two short of matching a career high.

“Navy is better than UMBC, they’re men” Ewing said Tuesday. “They’re going to be in the armed forces. They are physically tough. They have guys that can put up big numbers.”

As expected, Navy lacks in size. This will obviously be an issue against a Hoyas team that just pulled down 58 rebounds in the opener. There’s really no matchup on Navy to go toe-to-toe with Qudus Wahab so expect a lot of zone. Georgetown will need to be better than 7 for 27 from 3-point range as it’s likely the Navy strategy will be for the Hoyas to fire away from deep.

There’s a Georgetown connection to this Navy team as freshman guard Trae Broadnax is the son of former Hoyas guard Horace Broadnax who played three seasons alongside Ewing including the National Championship winning season in 1984.

Prediction: Georgetown 75, Navy 60. Pickett gets back on track ahead of the Hoyas matchup with a ranked WVU squad over the weekend.

Leave your witty (and non-witty) in-game comments here!

HOYA SAXA!